


Five Times Adam Cursed Crowley and Aziraphale (and One Time It Was a Blessing in Disguise)

by malicegeres



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 5+1 Things, Big Old Boatful of Cliches, Bodyswap, Drunken Shenanigans, Getting Together, Loss of Powers, M/M, Temporary Amnesia, Transformation, Truth Spells
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:00:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22851379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malicegeres/pseuds/malicegeres
Summary: Every year, the residents of Earth who came together at Tadfield Air Base gather for drinks to celebrate the Earth's continued existence. Every year from the time he's eighteen, Adam gets drunk and accidentally unleashes his powers on our favorite angel and demon. And, every year, Adam and his family fuck off to Wales for a week-long camping trip, leaving Crowley and Aziraphale to deal with the consequences until he gets back.A love song to weird fanfic cliches.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 89
Kudos: 179





	1. 1997

**Author's Note:**

  * For [questionablyevil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/questionablyevil/gifts).



> Maggie's got me on that basic bitch fanfic trope train and I am loving it. Also, this first chapter is filling a prompt sent to me by [moeyandchandon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lokalelyen/pseuds/moeyandchandon). Thanks, Elyen!

Every year following The End of the World (Sike!), the six humans and one angel, demon, and Antichrist who had stopped it gathered together to toast the continuing world.1 Before the children were sixteen they gathered in Tadfield, and when they were old enough everyone gathered in London at Aziraphale’s shop so that the adults could go out after for drinks. They always met the Saturday after Adam’s birthday, which meant that this year, Adam’s eighteenth since he was first handed to Crowley in a basket by two Dukes of Hell, all of the Them could join the adults at the pub.

Now, Adam was a boy of eighteen who’d grown up in a small English village. He was familiar with alcohol. That alcohol was largely squash and cheap vodka he’d stolen from his sister, but it was alcohol all the same. The trouble with Adam, however, was that he was a lightweight, and that he was still too young to understand that this was something he ought to try and regulate.

For his friends, this had provided endless entertainment. Not only was Adam hilarious when he was drunk; he was still the Antichrist. Their drunken escapades had included going to a nightclub where one had never existed before, ice skating on a pond that really ought to have cracked, and solving a mystery involving a real estate scheme and a rubber swamp monster costume. But even drunk, Adam was careful not to mess his human friends about that much. He’d saved the world because he loved them, after all, and he wouldn’t change them for the world.

He did not, however, have that same protective feeling for Crowley and Aziraphale. He was fond of them, alright, especially after so many summers together, but they were older, and they weren’t human, and he’d never been drunk around them before. So, when they started bickering, his guard was down.

It had started out innocently enough. Crowley was telling Anathema about the plans he was just beginning to make for Y2K. Anathema said something about how hard he was working, and Crowley grinned.

“Yeah,” he said, elbowing Aziraphale, “unlike this one who just sits on his arse reading and shooing away customers all day.”

Aziraphale glowered at him. “I do quite a bit more than that, my dear.”

“Yeah? What was your last big project? I do your job, Aziraphale, I know what it is you do. You just sit on park benches and encourage people to be nice to each other.”

“Oh, and what about you? You sleep for days on end.” He turned up his nose. “I just do my work more efficiently.”

Pepper snorted. “You two are ridiculous. I think you just need to walk a mile in each other’s shoes.”

“Yeah,” Adam muttered to himself. “Yeah, maybe you do.”

Nobody thought anything of it. Adam himself was too drunk to consider its implications too far, and by the time he woke up the next morning with a pounding headache, he’d forgotten he had said it at all.

The gathering broke up when the pub closed. Newt and Anathema went back to Madame Tracy’s flat, the Them to their late night train home, and Crowley and Aziraphale went back to their respective homes. Crowley went to sleep, and Aziraphale sat up in his favorite chair with a good book.

Only, he realized as he woke up that morning, he must have fallen asleep.

How odd. Aziraphale didn’t sleep, as a rule. It just wasn’t something he got any pleasure out of. But he must have forgotten to sober up and not realized, because here he was with his head on a pillow and a plush duvet pulled over his shoulders. Shivering, he pulled the blankets more tightly around him. He must have left a window open, as well, because he couldn’t seem to get himself warm.

Grunting, he opened his eyes. All at once, he was hit by several realizations.

The first was that he was in Crowley’s flat. He could have sworn he’d gone home to his shop last night. It didn’t make any sense.

The second was that he was in Crowley’s bed. A quick glance around him confirmed that Crowley wasn’t in the bed with him, but he couldn’t be certain if that was a relief.

Especially not as he came to his third realization. Because he’d grunted, and his voice had sounded _wrong_. It was slightly deeper, and the timbre of it was different. He wondered briefly whether he’d caught cold, but that was ridiculous. He was an angel; he’d never had a cold in his life.

“What in the world?” he muttered experimentally to himself. There was something familiar about the voice that came out, but he couldn’t quite place it. He sat up, and as he did so he got a glimpse of his hand. He _knew_ that hand, he realized. It just wasn’t a hand he was used to having attached to him.

The phone on the nightstand rang and he picked it up immediately.

“Hullo?”

“Aziraphale?” asked his voice on the other line, sounding desperate and frightened.

Aziraphale pursed his lips around teeth that were just a little too sharp. “Crowley?”

“Yeah,” his voice replied. It sounded wrong. Too casual for Aziraphale’s liking. “So I’m guessing you’re in a similar situation to me?”

“And what ssssssssituation is that—?“ Aziraphale began, and then he clapped a hand to his mouth.

“Ah, yep,” said the voice that apparently now belonged to Crowley.

“Oh,” said Aziraphale. “Oh dear.”

* * *

Crowley-in-Aziraphale’s-Body paced the living room of Crowley’s flat. It was remarkable, how small and Crowley-like he managed to looked even with Aziraphale’s additional height and weight. It was just the way he carried himself, Aziraphale supposed. Ever the serpent, ready to strike or slither away at a moment’s notice.

They had agreed not to make any changes to each other’s corporation, as it was clear it was only their consciousness that had switched and they’d need to find a way to return to their own bodies for things to be back to normal. Crowley didn’t keep any clothes in his flat, so Aziraphale had been forced to summon his own clothing. He’d piled on a shirt, a jumper, a thick wool jacket, and now he was summoning a scarf in the hopes that _this_ might be enough layers to make a dent in the chill that had settled into his—Crowley’s—bones.

Crowley stopped pacing and scowled “Oh, take that off. You’re making me look ridiculous, and it’s not going to do anything.” He gestured, and the lamp over Aziraphale’s seat on the couch lit up. “External sources, alright? You can’t just wake up and get going. You’ve got to use something like this heat lamp to warm up first.”

Aziraphale crossed his arms, glaring enviously at his body’s warm-looking padding as his elbows hit Crowley’s ribs. “I don’t know how you sssssstand your corporation,” he said. “The cold and the sssssspeech impediment are intolerable, and I don’t know why, but every time I walk by your plantsssss and look at the dirt my mouth watersssss!”

Crowley’s face remained carefully blank. “That last one sounds like a you problem,”2 he said, “and as for the rest, it’s not my fault. If I could change them, I would, but as you’re experiencing now, I can’t.”

“My dear boy,” said Aziraphale, raising an eyebrow, “your cold blood and your hissssssing are both _very much_ your fault.”

“We can get into theology later, angel. Right now, we’ve got to figure out how to fix this. How the hell did this even happen?”

“I sssssusssssssspect—oh, my, how tiresssssssome. I _think_ it’ssssss got sssssssomething to do with Adam. No one elsssssse would be able to sssssswitch our mindssssss like thisssssss. If we’d only changed corporationsssss, I imagine I wouldn’t be dealing with your curssssse and you wouldn’t be giving off all the holy energy you are right now.”

“Right,” said Crowley. He shifted his feet uncomfortably. “Are you feeling alright, by the way? Other than the cold, I mean?”

“You mean the feeling of being damned?”

He nodded.

Aziraphale shrugged. “Unssssettling, but not unbearable.” He hesitated, but between his guilt and his curiosity, curiosity won out. “What about you?”

“It’s… I don’t know. It’s warm? On an essential level, I mean, although the internal body temperature regulation is a nice perk.” He let out a shaky laugh that didn’t sound right on Aziraphale’s voice. “I didn’t know warm clothing felt this good. But, I don’t know. I can feel God’s presence in everything.” He shuddered. “It’s a little oppressive, to be honest. Or, I don’t know, not oppressive, exactly. Invasive? I think I don’t like it.”

Aziraphale hummed thoughtfully, considered this, and very quickly decided he ought to stop considering it. “I think you’d better call him. I’d offer, only I haven’t figured out how to talk around your…” He fished for a word without a sibilant, tired as he was of his words dragging, and he finally settled on, “… _problem_.”

“Well,” said Crowley, picking up the phone, “hopefully you don’t have to deal with it for long.”

He dialed the number for the Young residence and put the phone to his ear. Aziraphale heard a faint ring, and then another, and four more before he heard the faint, polite tones of what could only be a voicemail message. He saw Crowley’s eyes go wide, and as he watched he observed that it was harder to tell what exactly Crowley was thinking when his pupils were round and his irises were Aziraphale’s dark shade of brown.

“What?” Aziraphale asked.

Crowley hung up the phone. “I’ve just remembered. The kids went home last night because Adam needed to get up this morning. For a camping trip. In Wales. For a whole _week_.”

Aziraphale widened his eyes. “Oh _no_.”

Crowley sat down on the couch. “Alright,” he said, looking dazed. “I should call again and leave a message. Then I’m going to teach you how to be me, because you’re doing a terrible job of it so far.”

Aziraphale, forgetting himself, hissed with irritation. Then, for the first time all day, he blinked. “Fine,” he said miserably. “You have got me there.”

* * *

Being in Aziraphale’s body was an odd experience for Crowley. He was taller, for one thing, and beneath the fat Crowley wasn’t used to having, there was also more muscle than Crowley was used to having. It was just more body than Crowley tended to give himself, and it made him feel exposed. After all, if he’d wanted to be tall, he would have shaped his own corporation that way.

The metaphysical aspect was also strange, but Crowley was trying not to think about that. For all that being a demon was uncomfortable, feeling the warmth of Creation within himself after six thousand years nursing the wound his Grace had left felt… _itchy_. The Light was too bright, and the dark was too dark without eyes that were meant for Hell. He’d missed his Grace very much when he was young and freshly traumatized, but now that he had a considerable distance from his fall it was nice to get a little validation.

And speaking of itchy, good Go—bad... Anyway, Aziraphale’s wings were in a sorry state. He held out for most of the day as he and Aziraphale worked through what Crowley could remember of his Copper Age speech therapy exercises. He even resisted for a few hours after he got back to Aziraphale’s shop that evening, because grooming Aziraphale’s wings for him felt like an invasion of privacy. But, he decided, they were _his_ wings for the week, and he’d be blessed if he was walking around with his feathers all twisted and dirty.

He got them out and got the job done quickly. It had been a long time since he’d seen Aziraphale’s wings, but it felt wrong looking at them when it wasn’t Aziraphale showing them to him. Maybe Aziraphale felt differently about showing his wings than Crowley did, but after such a long time around humans, Crowley felt that wings were a private affair.

At least it was fun getting to dress Aziraphale’s body himself after so long having to watch it be wasted on eye-searing patterns and hideously practical shoes. It was the first thing he got to work on when he got back to the shop from his flat.3 He couldn’t dress Aziraphale like he’d dress himself, and to do so would have been a waste of jumpers when Crowley was getting the first chance he’d ever had in his life to see what the fuss was all about. He went for cleaner lines, subtler colors, and shoes that weren’t beat up white trainers.

He was _not_ better at doing Aziraphale’s hair than Aziraphale was. It was Afro-textured, which Crowley wasn’t terribly familiar with in general, but Aziraphale also tended to wear it wild and un-shaped in a way that suited him nicely. Crowley’s own hair was smoother in texture, and he’d been combing his dark waves flat with pomade or whatever else was popular since he’d woken up at the turn of the century, so while the effect he achieved with Aziraphale’s hair was certainly wild, it was too messy to really suit anyone.

Aziraphale had agreed to cover for Crowley at his meetings for the week, so in return Crowley had offered to run the shop and see to Aziraphale’s regular angelic duties. It sounded easy enough. All he had to do was sit in the shop and not sell any books, right?

It was Monday, which meant the shop was open from six to eight in the morning, half two to four in the afternoon, and for fifteen minutes between the hours of five and six if he felt generous. Six o’clock was ordinarily when Crowley liked to wake up, but he didn’t think Aziraphale would mind a slight modification to the shop’s schedule.

The shop was out of the way, tucked into a dead end lane off Broadwick Street, so he didn’t get his first customer until his second “shift” that day.

It was an married couple, two elderly tourists from Australia. As soon as Crowley heard the bell ring, he made himself scarce and pretended to be shelving books deep in the labyrinthine stacks. He tried to tune out their conversation and pretend they weren’t there, but eventually the woman yelled, “Excuse me! Is anyone in?”

Crowley stepped out from the stacks. “Can I help you?” he asked, trying to sound as put-upon as he possibly could.

“Oh, there you are!” said the woman, beaming. She was tiny. Crowley supposed most people looked tiny to Aziraphale, but even in his own body he would have been struck by how tiny she was, her hands eagerly clutching a century-old print of _Little Women_. “We were hoping to buy this.”

“It’s our daughter Ella’s favorite,” her husband added, his sandy blond-grey mustache turning up with his smile. He had a few inches on his wife, but he was tiny as well, and delightfully round. He was smiling the smile of a man who loved his daughter with every cell in his body, and couldn’t wait to bring her back a surprise from his adventures abroad.

All Crowley had to do was lie. “It’s not for sale,” he told them.

The woman frowned, her eyes sad behind her bright red coke bottle glasses. “Are you sure? We were quite interested in the inscription.” She opened the front cover and pointed to the endsheet. “It says, ‘To my darling Ella, with love from Zoey.’ That’s our Ella’s wife’s name. Zoey. Can’t you make an exception?”

Alright. Maybe he was under strict instructions not to sell any books, but surely Aziraphale would understand _this_ one. He shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Forty pounds,” he said.

He sold another that hour, because it turned out people really, really liked pretty old books, and after that he decided it would be best to just keep the shop closed for the week and do Aziraphale’s other job. He only had a week, so he couldn’t set up anything huge, but several coffee shops and fast food establishments suddenly found themselves playing host to chains of people paying for the people behind them.

Crowley had been right, Aziraphale’s job was easy if you were creative about it. He hadn’t even used any miracles. He’d just slipped an extra tenner to each of the cashiers, and the humans did the rest. By the end of the week, it was a headline all over Britain.

* * *

It had taken a solid day of practicing tongue twisters, but Aziraphale could now mostly operate Crowley’s tongue with nothing more than a slight lisp. He’d forgotten how hard Crowley had worked in the beginning to learn how to blend in with humans. Considering how many phrases Crowley had Aziraphale test out that morning, he thought Crowley might have, too, but after Aziraphale had gotten speaking properly more or less down, he spent the rest of the evening putting together a wardrobe for Aziraphale so that he wouldn’t embarrass him, so he was clearly still sensitive about it.

It didn’t hit him just how sensitive he was until he had a meeting on Wednesday with broadband company Crowley was working with.4 They met at the sort of flash upscale restaurant Crowley liked to visit that Aziraphale couldn’t stand; it was big, with little padding on the walls and ceilings so that your voice echoed. The food was more pretty than it was palatable, but the real stars of the show were the strong cocktails you came to be seen ordering, so that didn’t matter to most of its clientele.

When Aziraphale arrived, dressed in defiance of Crowley’s instructions in a black turtleneck and tartan trousers he felt were quite flattering on Crowley’s body,5 one of the suits at his table called out to him. Aziraphale joined them and exchanged a few greetings as they down a server to get him a drink, and immediately they started laying into him.

“You got a little lithp there, Tony,” said one with a grin.

Aziraphale frowned. Crowley didn’t like being called Tony, in his experience. “I don’t like being called Tony,” he told the man, his tone clipped. “And, yes, I was at the dentist yesterday and the swelling hasn’t quite gone down. Let’s get to business, gentlemen, shall we?”

“‘Buthineth,’ another one repeated, chuckling. “Lighten up, Tony. Who pissed in your porridge this morning?”

All at once, Aziraphale could see how this day was about to go. The lisp jokes would turn into gay jokes, and they’d keep calling Crowley by an overly familiar nickname he didn’t like, and once the drinks got flowing Aziraphale hardly saw how anything productive was going to happen at this meeting. Crowley probably would have tolerated all of it. He’d have laughed with the crowd, accepted the nickname, and written his wasted time off as an important stage of networking or some nonsense like that.

Aziraphale wasn’t having it. He glared at the man who’d just spoken, wishing he knew how to project facial expressions around his sunglasses the way Crowley did. But, it would have to do.

“I cannot tell you people the dreadful week I’m having,” he seethed, "and even if I could, I doubt you’ve either the compassion or the intelligence to comprehend it. Now, I’ve come here to discuss business. Presumably, so have you, unless this is some sort of university boys’ club I’ve stumbled across and I was given the wrong restaurant.” He reached down and pulled the file Crowley had put together for him out of his briefcase. “Now, if you please.”

Everyone at the table stared at him slack-jawed, and Aziraphale couldn’t help wondering whether standing up for himself was too out-of-character for the demon he was pretending to be.

* * *

They checked in with each other throughout the week. Crowley didn’t tell Aziraphale about the books, and Aziraphale decided against telling Crowley about his outburst at lunch. Aziraphale got to have tea with the old woman who lived in the flat below Crowley, and Crowley got to meet the young man Aziraphale was pretending was his son to get him hormone replacement therapy. It was an odd week, to be sure, but it was actually rather nice seeing how the other lived.

The only other big hiccup was on the last day before Adam was set to get home. The day had taken a turn for the relatively chilly, as was often the case in London in late August, and Crowley intended to appreciate the last hours of his warm-bloodedness by taking a nice nap under the wool blanket Aziraphale kept on the sofa in his backroom.

He was just settling in when the phone rang. He sighed. “A.Z. Fell and Company.”

“Crowley, I think I’m dying,” slurred a voice on the other line.

Crowley cringed. It wasn’t a bad voice, objectively speaking, but it was always a bit odd hearing oneself from outside of one’s head. “Hey, Aziraphale.” He took a deep breath and steeled himself for an obnoxious conversation. “Why exactly do you think you’re dying?”

“I-I went for a walk and it started raining, and then my head started swimming, and I couldn’t see straight, and—“

He sighed. “It’s fourteen degrees out and you went for a walk?”

“I got bored,” said Aziraphale in a small voice. And then, in a a louder, more petulant tone, he added, “And the heat lamp isn’t helping.”

“Yeah, no, it wouldn’t. It sounds to me like you’ve sent yourself into brumation.”

He went to tell Aziraphale how to snap himself out of it with a hot bath, but then he stopped himself. It was always lonely and frustrating when the cold got to him. Every muscle in his body ached, his vision blurred, and the last thing he wanted to do was drag himself to the bathroom and sit against the tub until it was full of hot water so he could snap himself out of it. And at least he was used to it. Aziraphale had been whining about the cold all week because, as an angel, he simply wasn’t accustomed to physical discomfort. Crowley couldn’t imagine how unsettling this must be for him.

“Just sit tight,” he said. “I’ll be right over.”

When he arrived, he didn’t bother knocking. Aziraphale was curled up under a blanket, glaring out from under it with rain-soaked hair like a wet cat.

Crowley waved a hand and the hair dried. “There’s your first problem,” he teased him gently. “What you need is a hot bath. About fifteen minutes should do the trick.”

“A bath,” Aziraphale repeated. He glanced down at the body he was occupying under the blanket, and then back up at Crowley. “I see.”

Crowley furrowed his brow. “Is there a problem?”

“No, no, if that’s the best course of action I will of course take it.”

For a moment Crowley squinted at him suspiciously, and then he remembered Aziraphale was in _his_ body, and Crowley was asking him to _take a bath in it_. As celestial beings, hygiene wasn’t really a concern. Crowley personally hadn’t gotten Aziraphale’s body down to anything more risqué than his undergarments out of respect for the angel’s privacy. There were a number of contexts he could—and frequently _did_ —imagine where he’d quite like seeing more of Aziraphale, but none of those involved having his mind trapped in Aziraphale’s body. He was sure Aziraphale felt the same way about him.

“Um.” He thought about it for another moment. “I mean, I don’t mind. You’re in pain, and it’s nothing you haven’t seen before. Doesn’t look too different to how it did in the Roman baths.”

“Yes, but I haven’t seen any of it since the baths were operational,” said Aziraphale uncomfortably.

“Fair enough.” Crowley frowned, and then he glanced at the blanket and saw an opportunity that might be pleasant for both of them. “You know what? Here.” He sat down next to Aziraphale, kicked off his shoes, and pulled the blanket so that it was lying over the both of them. “It’s your body heat; you might as well use it.”

Aziraphale chuckled and rearranged himself so that he was lying against Crowley. “I suppose that’s true. Thank you, my dear.”

Crowley yawned and pulled Aziraphale closer to him. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d been this close. “I was about to take a nap before you called, you know,” he said. “Do you mind?”

Aziraphale smiled. “Not at all, my dear. I might give that a try myself.”

They settled in, their breath slowing until they were nearly in sync with each other. Crowley was just beginning to drift off when the phone on the end table next to Aziraphale rang and shocked them both out of it.

Crowley dove over Aziraphale and picked it up. “Hello?”

“Hi,” said Adam Young. “Aziraphale? You left a message earlier this week. You said you had an emergency of some kind.”

“Oh. Um, yeah. You sort of got drunk and switched our bodies. This is actually Crowley speaking.”

Adam was silent for a moment. “Shit. I’m so sorry, you guys. I’ll fix that right now.”

Crowley started to thank him, but all at once the world shifted and he was suddenly curled up under a blanket, half-frozen and clinging to Aziraphale’s large, soft frame for warmth.

Aziraphale stared down at him, wide-eyed, the phone clutched to his ear. “Ah. Hello, Adam. This is Aziraphale now. Yes, you’ve fixed it. Yes. It’s quite alright, my dear. Could have happened to anyone. Did you have a nice holiday? Oh, I’m so glad to hear it. Well, now that things are as they should be, I think I’d better get going. Thank you, dear. Goodbye.” He hung up the phone and reached over Crowley to set it back on the end table. “Well,” he sighed, “that certainly was an experience.”

“Mm,” Crowley agreed, too dazed from the shock and being plunged back into a body that wasn’t in the best condition to say much else.

“Are you alright?”

“You really did a number on me while I was out,” he slurred.

Aziraphale smiled and pulled him closer. “Well,” he said, “I might as well finish what you were generous enough to start to make up for it.”

* * *

1 Shadwell had sadly passed away under mysterious circumstances after their first reunion. To this day Madame Tracy was too distraught to talk about it, but the life insurance payout had worked out nicely for her and nobody really minded that he was gone.

2 It wasn’t an Aziraphale problem. Crowley was desperately hoping he wouldn’t think too deeply about the text of Genesis 3:15 and find out about one of the stranger habits his punishment had saddled him with.

3 This was after he’d finished talking himself down from a panic attack over being trapped in a body that wasn’t his for a week.

4 Crowley was trying to sell them on a package of verbal notifications, including, “You’ve got mail,” “Error! Error! Error! Error! Error!, etc.,” and a fully automated, incredibly loud text-to-speech program for Clippy that could not be turned off without some serious programming talent.

5 Not that Aziraphale was about to admit just how much pleasure he’d taken looking at the fit of Crowley’s outfit in the mirror.


	2. 1998

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, last chapter was funney, this chapter is pretentious as shit with a side of funney. Idk, it felt right, just go with it.

Adam was a good sport about all the teasing at the next reunion. He still felt terribly, and he promised he’d try to mind his P’s and Q’s this time. He was still a lightweight though, and fresh off his first hard-drinking year of university, so for all he tried, he did not succeed. He wasn’t a messy drunk, though, blacked out as he was, so nobody noticed. And that meant that they weren’t careful what they said around him.

“Aziraphale, we’ve been over this,” said Crowley. “We had a whole…” He blinked blearily behind his sunglasses. “There was the whole _apocalypse_ , Aziraphale. An’ it stopped because Adam got raised human.”

“But m’not talking about good and evil,” said Aziraphale. “I mean, more broadly, you know, who people are deep down. How much of that is experience, and how much of that is just who you are? Especially for us. Perhaps we have free will, but we’re not human.”

“Right, right,” said Crowley, “but aren’t our experiences part of who we are? I mean, you can’t have one without the other. You can’t just bottle all that back up and say one bit of that is you and another bit isn’t. I mean, look at you. You spent all that time justifying the Ineffable Plan an’ all that to yourself. Your whole life was shaping yourself around that, and your life now is unpacking it.

“Hang on,” said Anathema, “but you two aren’t human.”

“But we’ve got free will,” said Aziraphale. “That’s something we’ve worked very hard to establish.”

“Right, but you’re not _human_. There’s more to it than free will. Humans carry all sorts of experiences with them. Who our parents are, where we grew up, that sort of thing. I spent my whole life living by a Plan, too, but there’s a difference between being born into a family following a book of prophecies and being created for a specific purpose. And even then, look at Adam. He was created for a specific purpose, but he didn’t fulfill it because of things that happened when he was young.”

“I mean, you could make the same argument of me,” said Crowley. “I was created to be an angel, and that certainly didn’t last long.”

Anathema took a thoughtful sip of her beer. “Were you, though? I mean, how long did you last as an angel, exactly?”

“Time was a bit funny, then,” said Crowley, “but we were all created on the First Day1 and the whole War and Fall and everything was on the Third Day. So, not long.”

“Then how do you know you were created to be an angel?”

Crowley stared at her. “I’m not drunk enough for this.”

“I think there’s some merit to the question, though,” said Aziraphale. “Can you still remember the moment you were created? I can.”

“Yeah,” said Crowley uncomfortably.

“Well, you went from that to falling in three days. There had to be something inherent in you that predisposed you to it.”

“Okay, no,” said Crowley, jabbing a finger at him. “There’s nothing _inherent_ about it. I had friends around me. I had influences. I didn’t fall when I was a blank slate, I fell after a series of experiences with a number of angels’ choices.” He tilted his head back and took a long drink of his highball. “Anyway, this is a ridiculous argument.2 It’s not as though we’ve got any way of knowing.”

Adam had been quiet, partly because he was rapt and partly because he was simply too drunk to think of anything to add to the conversation. But he was listening, and Crowley had just given him another terrible idea he wouldn’t remember in the morning.

* * *

Crowley was supposed to pick Aziraphale up for lunch at half past noon the next day, but he didn’t show. Aziraphale got an immediate suspicion what had happened, although he didn’t notice anything off about himself. But when he called Crowley, he didn’t pick up, and when he went to his flat he didn’t answer the door and Aziraphale had to let himself into the building.

He got to his flat and knocked on the door. Crowley was in there, and he didn’t feel off, but he still didn’t answer the door. Aziraphale knocked again. “Crowley?” he called. “Is everything alright?”

For a moment there was silence, and then Crowley called, “Who are you?”

Aziraphale scowled. “It’s Aziraphale, you silly old serpent. Who else would it be?”

There was another long pause, and then a set of footsteps. The door knob rattled a few times, and Aziraphale heard Crowley mutter, “How the hell do you open this stupid thing?”

Aziraphale knit his brows together and put a hand on the door. It unlocked itself, and he pushed it open gently.

Crowley was standing in his living room in black silk pajamas, hair still mussed from sleep, eyes uncovered and his irises eclipsed by pupils blown wide with shock.

He shut the door behind him. “What’s the matter, dear?” he asked. “I tried to call you, and you weren’t answering your door, either.”

Crowley tilted his head. “Do I… know you?”

Aziraphale looked at Crowley, thought back to the night before, and sighed. “Yes. Let me guess: you have absolutely no memory of who, what, or where you are.”

“Well, I know my name,” said Crowley, crossing his arms irritably.

“Oh. That’s something, at least.”

“It’s not what you called me. It’s—“ And then Crowley bent double, coughing violently as his throat and tongue began to burn.

Aziraphale closed his eyes, silently begging God for strength. “That wouldn’t be the name thrumming at the base of your existence, would it?”

Crowley coughed again. “What?” he whispered hoarsely.

Aziraphale felt a twinge of pity looking at the wild, frightened expression on his face. He stepped carefully over to him and took him by the arm. “Please, my dear, just sit down.”

He guided Crowley over to the sofa and sat him in his favorite corner. Then he felt his forehead and, remembering their last debacle, switched on the heat lamp over his spot to at least make him more comfortable. Then he sat in the chair on the other side of the coffee table from him and waited patiently for Crowley to settle.

Crowley stared at him. “Why… What just happened?”

“You can’t say that name, dear. You haven’t been able to for as long as I’ve known you.”

“Why not? It’s my name. I don’t know what’s going on, but the one thing I do know is that my name is— _that_.”

Aziraphale pursed his lips. “Is that really the only thing you know?”

“Yes! The first thing I can remember is waking up here, and then that thing—“ He pointed at the phone. “—started making noise, and then you were pounding on that door over there, and now we’re here.”

“So you know what a door is, but not a telephone.” He supposed that made sense. Heaven had doors in the Beginning; it didn’t have telephones.

“And my name! Why can’t I say it? And you still haven’t told me who you are. Why can’t I remember anything other than a name I can’t say?”

“The ‘name’ you’re talking about is the Word that was used to create you. Mine is Aziraphael, but you can’t say that one, either. The name I actually use is Aziraphale, and the one you use is Crowley. I imagine it’s the only thing you remember because on some level it’s still— hm.”

“What?”

“Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? Is that Word _you_? We talked about it once, a long time ago when you first told me you couldn’t say the Word that made me. I think of myself more as Aziraphale now, and you said then that you wanted to choose a name for yourself, anyway.”

“Okay, _Aziraphale_ , that doesn’t answer a single one of my questions.”

“I think your memories have been reset to the moment of your creation.” He paused. “Although, not the rest of you. You’re still a demon.”

“What the hell is a demon?”

Aziraphale very nearly spiraled into an existential crisis right then and there, but then something struck him. “Just a moment. Knowing doors and not telephones I understand, but you know the word ‘hell’ but not what a demon is?”

“To be fair, I don’t actually know what it means. It just felt right.”

He sighed. “Do you know what an angel is?”

“No.”

“God?”

“Nope.”

“Heaven?”

“Negative.”

“Earth?”

“Jussssst assume I don’t know anything unless I tell you otherwise,” Crowley snapped. And then he frowned. “So it’s just my memories, you said. I didn’t, you know, spontaneously generate right here in the middle of—of wherever I am?”

Aziraphale declined to consider what it meant that Crowley was referencing antiquated scientific theory.3 “No. We’ve been friends for nearly six thousand years. Last night you and I got into a philosophical debate around someone who had the power to do this. He’s gone… _somewhere else_ , so we won’t be able to reach him and ask him to restore your memories for another week.”

“A week,” Crowley repeated.

“Do you know what a week is?”

“Yes, I know what a bloody week is!” He paused. “I think. I know there’s… time, but it’s not settled, is it?”

“No, it is,” said Aziraphale, relieved to be able to give him some good news. “It’ll be faster than you’re imagining, I think.”

“Oh. Hm. Silver linings, I suppose.” He sat back, unfurling himself as he began to relax and the heat settled into him. “So what is a demon?”

Aziraphale sat back, ready for a long, frustrating conversation. “Well. In the Beginning…”

* * *

“So, let me see if I have this straight. God created the whole Universe. You, me, the materials that make up the room we’re sitting in, all that.”

“Yes.”

“And I was made like I am right now, no memories, never done anything wrong, none of that.”

“More or less.”

“So I was given three days to pass or fail one, single test, and I was thrown out of Heaven so hard that now I can’t even say my own name because it’s too connected to a God who, at least at the time I was thrown out, actively hated me and everyone like me?”

Aziraphale winced. “We don’t know whether She hated you. Maybe it was part of Her plan.”

Crowley snorted. “Seems pretty vindictive, if you asked me.” He sat quietly, his mind a-whir behind his eyes. “So what were we debating?”

“Pardon?”

“Last night. When our friend erased my memories. What was the question?”

“Oh,” said Aziraphale. He considered bringing up the question of whether Crowley was created to fall, but he wasn’t certain how this Crowley would handle it. “It was about whether it can be said that somebody has a basic nature,” he told him, “or whether our experiences should be considered a part of that nature.”

“So I’ve been reset to somebody with no experiences.”

“Exactly.”

He frowned. “Do I seem different?”

Aziraphale thought about it. “You’re just as blunt with your questions,” he said, “but more confident, I think. I expected you to be a lot more shaken by this whole experience, but you’re taking it in stride.”

“Well, from my point of view, I’ve never experienced anything else. What else am I meant to do?”

“That’s exactly it, though, isn’t it? You learned to be afraid. And the way you keep clinging to your name isn’t something you’d do, I don’t think. By the time I met you, you were already trying to construct a new identity. You wouldn’t just accept whatever self was given to you.”

Crowley folded his arms and nodded thoughtfully. “I think I sort of understand that last bit. I keep harping on the name thing because it’s all I know, and I don’t like that I can’t use it.” He met Aziraphale’s eyes. “That name you keep using for me. Crowley. I came up with it for myself, right? Because I liked it?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I think I like that. The idea of coming up with one for myself, I mean, since someone took away mine. So that’s the same. I think I’m just at the beginning of deciding how to feel about it is all, since that’s still something I’m experiencing.”

“And you’re experiencing it differently,” Aziraphale added. “You don’t remember your Creator, or your first home, or the experience of living as an angel, or the pain of falling. You just remember a word.”

“Yeah,” said Crowley. “Do I seem happier?”

“You seem confused, my dear,” Aziraphale teased. “But, honestly, no, not particularly. For all you’ve been through, you’ve always been good at making the most of things.”

“That’s good, at least,” said Crowley, turning sideways and stretching out on the sofa. “So what am I meant to do for the rest of the week? It can’t be _all_ philosophy.”

Aziraphale’s eyes widened, and he started to smile. “We did have lunch plans, you know.”

Crowley blinked for the first time all day. “What’s lunch?”

* * *

Aziraphale had owned very few cats in his life, and he’d never tried to teach one to walk on a leash. If he had, however, he would have had a very apt analogy for what he had to do to get Crowley out the door and into a restaurant.

When one is training their cat to walk on a leash, the first challenge is always getting the cat to take to the harness. Crowley was in pajamas, and he couldn’t see any difference between the clothes he’d woken up in and the clothes the people passing below on the street were wearing. Aziraphale found a stack of magazines on the coffee table and began pointing to photographs of clothes he thought Crowley would be pleased with if he had his memories.

It turned out that, as a nearly blank slate, Crowley was shameless about color. He went with jewel tones, mostly. He liked the way that pink looked against his eyes, and Aziraphale had to talk him down from going too bright with his shoes or his trousers. Even he knew better than to let Crowley go out looking like a spokesman for Crayola.

He also didn’t understand why he had to wear sunglasses.

“They don’t go with the look I want.”

“I know,” said Aziraphale, “but you can’t go showing your eyes to people.”

“Why not? I see people out there showing their eyes.”

“They look human. You don’t.”

“So?”

“You’re a demon, Crowley. You’ll frighten them.”

“What, are humans afraid of demons?”

“Generally, yes.”

“And I’ve got demon eyes?”

“ _Yes_ ,” he said, relieved.

“Huh.” Crowley looked at the sunglasses in his hands and placed them delicately on his face. “Shame I have to hide them. I quite like them, actually.”

It was practically dinner by the time they left.

Once the cat is used to the harness and willing to walk on a leash, a cat owner still can’t expect to walk the cat the way one might be able to walk a dog. Cats don’t follow commands, and they don’t go where you tell them to go. Instead, the owner’s job is to follow where the cat wants to explore and keep the cat out of danger.

A car sped by, and Crowley’s head whipped around. “What was that?” he asked, sounding awed. He made to step off the pavement to get a closer look, and Aziraphale grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Stop,” he said. “The tarmac—the road—the black bit with the lines is for cars. The fast thing. They’re not expecting people in it, and if you get hit, you’ll be knocked out of the body you’re in and sent back down to Hell. And I don’t think you’d like what they’d do to you if you showed up down there with no memories.”

“Okay,” said Crowley. “Don’t step in the black bit. Got it.” He spotted the Bentley parked on the street. “So that’s a car, you said?”

“Yes. That’s your car, actually.”

“Oh, wow,” he whispered. “It’s sort of pretty.” His lips twisted in contemplation. “I think I can feel it. It feels right.”

“You’re very fond of it,” said Aziraphale. “Some of that probably rubbed off on it.”

Crowley looked at him. “Can it go that fast?”

Aziraphale kept his tone neutral. “Yes.”

He glanced at the car again, and then back to Aziraphale. “Could you show me how to use it?”

“We are _walking_.” Aziraphale grabbed Crowley by the hand and dragged him away. “You sold two of my books last year, and I won’t have you totaling your own car this year.”

They went to a kebab shop for a kebab and chips to share, and they took it all back to Aziraphale’s shop. Crowley was curious about the books, as he had some idea what they were, but Aziraphale was adamant that those would be better to try tomorrow. For now they would eat, and then he’d introduce Crowley to wine.

Crowley didn’t know that it wasn’t the first time Aziraphale was introducing him to food and drink. Back in Uruk, not too many centuries after the first humans had set out east of Eden. They had both been a lot rougher around the edges, then. Aziraphale was still smarting from his demotion from Cherub to Principality, and Crowley hadn’t quite figured out how to live among humans. They’d both done things to each other after that they weren’t proud of, but when Aziraphale first recognized Crowley and saw that he’d been missing out on what Earth had to offer, he hadn’t thought twice before taking him to the market and showing him the things he loved.

He wondered, when Crowley got his memories back, whether he’d make the connection.

* * *

The week passed pleasantly. Aziraphale made the most of being able to show Crowley things he liked, and even to take him to things Aziraphale usually enjoyed without him because Crowley’s tastes had developed away from them. But it had been frustrating, having to teach him about everything, so it was something of a relief when Adam finally called him back at the shop.

“I can’t believe it happened again. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s alright,” said Aziraphale, “really. We were fine.”

Crowley was staring down at his bright red trousers. “I’m not fine!” he hissed. “I look ridiculous!”

Aziraphale covered the speaker of the phone and mouthed, “Stop.” Then, returning to full voice, he said, “We’re going to go, my dear. I hope your friends are all very happy to see you when you return to university next week. Do pop by for a visit. Toodle-oo.” He hung up and sighed. “This is going to happen every year, isn’t it?”

“It’s starting to look like a pattern,” said Crowley sourly. He sat in the plush armchair sulking for a moment, and then he said, “So, what do you think?”

“About what, dear?”

“Was I made to fall?”

Aziraphale thought about it. “You know,” he said, “I don’t think the answer’s any clearer now than it was before. You certainly weren’t as different as I imagine I’d be.”

“No,” Crowley agreed. He stretched out. “I had a nice week, for what it’s worth. I wouldn’t have expected that. Of me, I mean.” He gave him a slight smile. “You always did like showing off when I’d missed out on things. Everything from wine to the electric light when I woke up from last century.”

“As though you don’t like to show off,” Aziraphale scoffed, but he couldn’t help smiling.

“I learn from the best,” said Crowley smugly. “C’mon. I owe you a proper lunch. I’ll drive this time.”

Aziraphale followed him out, privately hoping whatever the next reunion threw at them, it would go as smoothly as this.

* * *

1 Meaning all angels, fallen or otherwise, shared a star sign with the Earth.

2 A phrase which here means, “an argument I no longer want to have because it’s making me think about things I’d rather not think about right now.”

3 This wasn’t simply because it was too much for Aziraphale to handle. Crowley had been created to attend prophets once the work of Earth’s Creation was complete, and a bit of that clairvoyance had lingered after his fall. A little anachronism was entirely in-character for him.


	3. 1999

Adam was determined not to get drunk. He’d felt so guilty the last two summers, and at twenty years old he really thought he ought to have control over himself by now. He’d had his abilities for nearly half his life. It was ridiculous to put his friends through impossible scenarios at this point, and now he felt he’d well and truly gotten sloppy drinking out of his system. He nursed one single whiskey with a splash of water the whole night,1 and everything he did that night was filtered through the unforgiving lens of reality. And what he learned was that the people he saved the world could be very, very annoying.

It wasn’t just Crowley and Aziraphale getting on his nerves. Pepper was in a sour mood, Brian and Wensleydale were having a heated argument and ignoring everyone else, Newt was sloppy and trying to rekindle things with Anathema, and Madame Tracy kept asking Adam what he was doing after he finished university when Adam really didn’t want to think about it. He was bored, he was in a bad mood, and he had magic powers whose consequences he could easily reverse.

But Crowley and Aziraphale were being particularly obnoxious that night. They’d gotten into an argument on the way to the pub, and they were enjoying that argument so much they seemed to have forgotten there was anyone else around who might not want to hear them bicker. Adam couldn’t even tell what it was they were bickering about.

He and Pepper went to the bar to get everyone (except Adam) another round of drinks.

“You’re sure you don’t want anything?” asked Pepper.

“I don’t want to mess with those two again,” Adam sighed.

Pepper rolled her eyes. “The way they’re acting tonight, it’d serve them right. For two people who’ve been around since the Beginning of Time, they’re acting like a couple of children.”

Adam laughed. “Maybe I ought to turn them into babies. Or one of them, anyway. One could babysit the other.”

Pepper laughed, too, and at the same time they stopped laughing as their old instinct for mischief washed over them. They let a few people go ahead of them to order drinks, and they used that time to come up with a plan.

That night, Crowley and Aziraphale went to home feeling certain they wouldn’t suffer the same absurdity as the last two years. Adam obviously hadn’t been in the best of moods, but he’d had one drink, and he’d felt so badly about the previous incidents that they couldn’t imagine he’d do anything to them sober.

* * *

Aziraphale didn’t know when the change came over him. That was one thing you could say about Adam’s little power hiccups, they happened with little shock or pain beyond the emotional. And, in fairness to Aziraphale, he was quite wrapped up in his book, and he took _very_ good care of his hands so they didn’t look much softer than usual. Smaller, yes, but not softer. It was only when the light of the sunrise caused him to look up from his book that he noticed how much bigger the world had gotten.

* * *

Crowley was trying not to laugh. Really, he was. It was just hard not to do when a fluffy-haired, chubby-cheeked, meter-high professor was pouting indignantly at him with his arms crossed and his neck craned so he could meet Crowley’s eyes. Adam had the decency to shrink Aziraphale’s whole outfit with him, so he even had little reading glasses he’d never needed in the first place perched at the smooth, round end of his tiny little nose.

It was almost as good as when he’d picked up his telephone that morning and heard the most precocious little voice he’d ever heard say, “Crowley, my dear boy, I think Adam must have been a bit more sozzled than we were led to believe.”

There were also a number of things Crowley was trying not to say, such as, “Awww,” or “You’re so tiny!” or, “You haven’t looked this cherubic since you had four heads.”

“It’s not funny,” Aziraphale whined.

“I’m not laughing,” said Crowley, failing to suppress a smile.

“I didn’t mock you when you lost your memory.”

“I’m not mocking you!”

“No, but you’re thinking it.”

Finally, Crowley cracked and collapsed into a fit of giggles. “I can’t help it. I mean, have you looked in a mirror, angel?”

“Stop.”

“You look like you’re getting ready to solve the mystery of who stole your class hamster”

Aziraphale jabbed a finger at him. “Crowley, I’m warning you…”

Crowley laughed. “Sorry, sorry, I’m done. It’s out of my system.” He took a deep, steady breath to calm himself, but it came out as a rather undignified snort.

Now, to his knowledge, Aziraphale was still in full possession of his faculties. Although his motor skills weren’t quite at the level of an adult’s, he could reason, read, and articulate himself just as well as he could in his preferred shape.

But form shapes function. While Aziraphale’s memories and knowledge were that of a six thousand-year-old angel, the brain those memories were sitting in was that of a three-year-old child. This was a more intense experience than one might assume. One might think that the mind of a child is simple, but what this forgets is that a child’s mind is built to withstand the construction of a human being’s full understanding of the world from the ground up. The baby learns to hold up their own head, the toddler learns to walk, and the three-year-old is just at the beginning to understand that they do, in fact, live in a society. In between these big lessons are all sorts of little ones, like what things hurt to touch and what things don’t belong in your mouth. Many of the joys and pains of a three-year-old are still novel, and those feelings come with an intensity it’s difficult for an adult to access unless they’ve had a very, _very_ bad week.

Aziraphale had never been a child before, so he was completely taken aback when the frustration that had been bubbling up in his chest boiled over into a loud, wet sniffle.

Crowley stopped laughing immediately. “Hey. You alright?”

“Y-yes,” Aziraphale blubbered. “D-don’t be—“ He sniffed. “—ridiculous, my-my dear boy-y-yyyyy.” He wiped his nose on his sleeve.

Like Aziraphale, Crowley was experiencing a number of inconvenient impulses. He was a demon, but to his great shame he was actually pretty fond of kids. He’d learned a long time ago that they were a lot more insightful than their parents tended to give them credit for, and few things made him prouder than when they trusted him enough to confide those insights in him. A crying kid didn’t really phase Crowley. All you really had to do with a crying kid was acknowledge them, calmly explain to them why they shouldn’t be afraid, and, if the situation called for it, maybe give them a hug.

A crying Aziraphale was something Crowley wasn’t quite certain what to do with—a crying Aziraphale who was also a _child_ , even less so. Whether it was Crowley’s fondness for children or some quirk of his human form, something in him desperately wanted to pick Aziraphale up and hold him. It was only the logical part of him that knew the weeping child in front of him was his sworn enemy/best friend/ambiguously requited (but nevertheless unfulfilled) crush that stopped him. So he just stood there, staring.

“Oh, stop looking at me like that!” said Aziraphale with a watery snap.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you want me to do!”

Aziraphale sniffed loudly. “I just want it all to _stoooooop_.”

“Okay. Um. I mean, have you had a nap?”

“I don’t need a nap! I’m an angel!”

A crying Aziraphale Crowley didn’t know what to do with, but a cranky Aziraphale put him on solid ground. “Yeah?” he asked, crossing his arms. “You got any powers?”

Aziraphale’s sobs subsided as he considered the question. “No.”

“No,” Crowley agreed. “So you’re a human for the week, and a little one at that. Kids need more sleep than adults.” He smirked. “You’re a growing boy, angel.”

“The sooner the better,” grumbled the pint-sized angel.

* * *

Aziraphale’s shop was something of a lifeline for him. It provided routine, a vantage point from which to observe his community, and an outlet for feelings that weren’t otherwise permissible for angels.2 There was no better diversion, and Aziraphale could imagine nothing better for getting through the week than a diversion.

The trouble was Crowley. When Aziraphale had awoken from his nap and lamented that he couldn’t open the shop until tomorrow, Crowley had stared at him and said, “You can’t run a shop like this.”

“Why ever not? It’s my shop.”

“ _They_ aren’t going to know that,” he said, jabbing a thumb toward the public entrance to the bookshop. “Somebody’s going to call Child Protection Services on you—or on me, since I’m the only adult hanging around you.”

Aziraphale went to cross his arms, but he imagined how bratty he must look and thought better of it. “I won’t sit idle being… _babysat_ for the next week. And I won’t have you running the shop,” he added, pointing an accusing finger at Crowley. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten how you handled that the last time.”

“Well forgive me for running your shop as a business meant to sell things!” He sighed. “Fine. Let’s compromise. You can run the shop, and I’ll sit in the corner and look like I’m supervising you.”

“That’s still babysitting, my dear.”

“Yeah, well, at least you won’t be sitting idle while I do it.”

Aziraphale groaned. “This is humiliating.”

“Yes, I imagine that’s the point of it. Now, are we agreed?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale relented.

The next day, Crowley pulled Aziraphale’s arm chair out from the backroom and parked it in a corner of the shop. He sat down, took out a paperback thriller Aziraphale was privately offended to see amid his carefully-curated inventory, and curled up happily to let Aziraphale do his thing.

Aziraphale usually spent the day sitting in a chair at the desk he had set up to complete transactions.3 It now took him some effort to climb into that chair, and once he was up he couldn’t reach across the desk unless he was standing.

His nostrils flared, and he swallowed his pride. “Crowley?”

Crowley looked up. “Hm?”

“Would you be so kind as to fetch me a phonebook or two to sit on?”

He looked at the ground, seemingly considering whether to put his feet on it, and then he lifted a hand and waved it. A black plastic booster seat appeared on the chair, placed vertically just behind Aziraphale’s feet.

He squinted at it. “What on earth is this?”

“It’s a booster seat.”

Aziraphale stared at him. “I beg your pardon?”

“You sit on it. It makes you taller.”

He sighed. “Thank you,” he said through gritted teeth.

His hours provided him with some defense from the public, but eventually the bell over the door rang and an elderly gentleman in a tweed suit walked in. His eyes landed on Aziraphale and his face burst into a smile.

“Minding the shop, are you, young man?”

Aziraphale heard Crowley shift in his seat as he prepared for a show. He ignored him. “Can I help you, sir?”

“Oh, isn’t that darling?” The man smiled over at Crowley. Then he did a double-take as he realized that Crowley and Aziraphale looked absolutely nothing alike, and he said, “Is he your…?”

Crowley shrugged and went back to his book. “Just keeping an eye on him.”

The man shrugged as well and decided to just look through the shop. Eventually he returned to the front desk with a book, and he hesitated. He looked at Aziraphale, then at Crowley, back to Aziraphale, and finally he seemed to settle on Crowley. He cleared his throat. “Pardon me.”

Crowley looked up.

“I’d like to buy this book?”

Crowley jerked a thumb at Aziraphale. “It’s not my shop. Talk to him.”

“Oh. Really?”

“He’s the one who knows all the prices.”

The man, looking increasingly concerned, approached Aziraphale. “Excuse me, young man. Can you help me buy this book?”

Aziraphale was too little to look down his nose at the man, but he managed to achieve the effect anyway. “One moment while I check my ledgers, please.” He pulled out an ancient, leather-bound ledger book and began thumbing through it. “Hm. I’m sorry, sir, this particular item isn’t listed in our inventory. I’m afraid I can’t sell it.”

The man laughed nervously and looked at Crowley. “Very sweet. Seriously, how much is it?”

Crowley turned a page in his book. “He’s the boss, not me.”

“I really do have to be going, you know.”

“That’s fine. Talk to the guy at the register.”

Not wanting to insult a child to his place, the man set the book down slowly on the table, thanked the child behind the desk very much for his help, and walked out the door.

“Well,” said Crowley, adjusting his book in his hand so he could see the next page better, “that turned out to be a very good deterrent for customers.”

“I suppose so,” said Aziraphale glumly. “It’s not terribly dignified, is it?”

He closed the book around a finger to mark his place. “Oh, come on. You’ve got a whole week of this. You can’t just spend the whole time wallowing.”

“I could, you know.” He took a deep breath and drew himself up to his full, low height. “I’m closing the shop for the day. Is there any reason I shouldn’t have something to drink? It’s not as though I have to worry about stunted growth or brain development.”

“I think kids can have wine? Humans were giving kids alcohol back before water sanitation, right?” Crowley hesitated. “Let’s maybe Ask Jeeves.”

Aziraphale furrowed his brow. “As in P.G. Wodehouse?”

For a moment Crowley looked as though he was getting ready to answer, but it seemed whatever Aziraphale had just done with his face had distracted him because his shoulders went slack and in a fond tone he said, “Oh, gosh.” He cleared his throat and tried to look more serious. “No, it’s a search engine.”

“A what?”

He looked exasperated. “A _website_ , angel.”

According to the helpful cartoon butler that was rendered in black and white on Aziraphale’s old computer, giving wine to a three-year-old was, in fact, incredibly dangerous. Seizures and comas were involved.

“Sorry, Aziraphale,” said Crowley, pushing the chair back from the desk. “It might be for the best. I can’t imagine it would taste good to you, anyway.”

Aziraphale stared up at him. “What do you mean?”

Crowley visibly steeled himself. “You’ve probably got a more sensitive palate, now.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Try me.”

“But you’ll—“

“One sip won’t do me any harm, and if it does, you’re more than capable of reversing it. Pour me a taste of wine.”

Crowley sighed and went to the back corner. “Fine, I’ll get you a Moscato so you’ve got a fighting chance.”

Aziraphale was handed a glass that now felt entirely too big and delicate for his hand. There was what he supposed was an adult’s finger of wine in the glass for tasting. He sniffed experimentally. It was definitely Moscato, bright and syrupy-sweet, and nothing about its scent seemed off to him. Then he took a sip and he gagged. As sweet as it had smelled, it tasted as though he’d just taken a sip of rubbing alcohol. He spat it back into the glass.

“That’s _dreadful_ ,” he rasped, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “So I can’t even have wine?”

“You couldn’t have had wine even if it had tasted good,” Crowley muttered under his breath.

He could feel another crying jag coming on, and he fought it. “Now Adam’s really gone too far. Wine—one of my greatest earthly pleasures—now turns to ash in my mouth!”

“Because your body is trying to tell you it’s poison,” Crowley interjected in a bored tone.

“The absurdity of it! The indignity!”

“Mmhm.” He manifested a glass for himself and poured the wine into it.

“Stop that.”

“What, drinking wine?”

“No, _humoring_ me. Just because I look like a child doesn’t mean that I am. This is incredibly difficult for me, and I won’t have you disrespecting me just because Adam decided to spare you.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “If you think I’d react any differently to ‘wine turns to ash in my mouth’ if you weren’t fun size, I don’t know where you’ve been for the last six thousand years. I’m disrespecting you _because_ I respect you.”

He crossed his arms. “Well, perhaps I’m a little more sensitive at the moment.”

“Alright, sorry, I’ll lay off.”

* * *

With the shop closed, Crowley did his best to fill Aziraphale’s time. Bars were out of the question, and Aziraphale was discovering that many of his favorite foods weren’t suited to a child’s palate. Everything about the way his brain was processing sensory information was still intense, but as the week wore on he also discovered that, while it made sensations an adult might enjoy unpleasant, he’d never had a better time enjoying the little things that didn’t involve a substance Harrod’s might have sold at the turn of the previous century.

“Come on,” said Crowley, pushing a basket across the plastic table.

Aziraphale wrinkled his nose. “It looks so terribly bland.”

“That’s what the ketchup’s for.”

“What part of the chicken does a ‘nugget’ even come from?”

A table nearby snickered at the apparently precocious child. Aziraphale had learned to ignore it by then.

“I don’t know. What’s sausage made of? It doesn’t matter. Just try it.”

Aziraphale pinched a nugget between his pudgy fingers, dipped it delicately into the dollop of ketchup Crowley had poured into the corner of his paper basket, and took a bite. His eyes widened.

Crowley grinned. “Good?”

He nodded enthusiastically, chewed his food, and swallowed. “How extraordinary.”

With a laugh, Crowley tossed a chip into his mouth. “Told you. Kids go nuts for this sort of thing. We’ll go for ice cream after this, and that’ll _really_ blow your mind.”

Adam had a good laugh over the phone when he got home from his camping trip. “Can I talk to Aziraphale?”

“Adam wants to talk to you,” Crowley relayed.

“Not until he’s changed me back,” huffed Aziraphale.

Adam laughed. “That’s alright, I could hear him anyway. Did you take any pictures?”

“No, Adam,” Crowley seethed. “I’ve been a bit busy babysitting a pint-sized nightmare.”

“Really, my dear!”

“Oh, stuff it. I’ve dealt with you for a week now, I can speak my mind. Adam, come on.”

And, just like that, Aziraphale popped back to his normal size.

“ _Thank_ you,” said Crowley. “Ciao.” He hung up and threw his head back. “Vindictive little shit.”

Aziraphale flexed his fingers experimentally. “Come on my dear,” he said, walking to his coat hanger and grabbing a coat. “Let’s do dinner and drinks.”

* * *

1 Adam’s father had always told him whiskey was an acquired taste, and he was hoping persistence would speed that acquisition since people always looked cool when they drank it in films.

2 Spite and hedonism, to name two major examples.

3 In theory.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me at [@crowleyraejepsen](http://www.crowleyraejepsen.tumblr.com/)!


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